Dot gain is a well known problem in the flexographic printing industry. It is understood that dot gain on a printed web can be partially attributed to a relative slippage between printing features of the flexographic printing plate and the surface of the web being printed. Slippage happens in the nip between a deformable printing tool and a back-up roll and is due to either incompressibility of the material of the printing plate or mismatch of surface velocities of the printing plate and the web. Dot gain for small features is more pronounced than for large features. This is because slippage of a small distance is considerably larger relative to a small dot than the same slippage distance with a considerably larger dot.